Tango

  In the film Tango, there are many scenes with words, just the images of the dance and the sounds of the music.  I have never seen a movie that could be so emotional and powerful with so few words.  For example, the torture scene near the end of the movie was so intense.  It conveyed the fear, pain, and horror that the missing would have felt.  I have never really gotten into interpretive dance, but I must say, this was quite an experience.  I believe that the director fused to very important parts of Hispanic culture to create this film.  The beauty and power of dance and the memory of past government abuse.  He uses these tools, that would be very recognizabl to almost any Latino, to create atmospheres and moods.

Like Water for Chocolate

  I believe that this entire film is about love.  It is about the belief that love can conquer all.  It can defeat traditions, enemies, even wars.  The film depicts a doomed love that cannot be; however, the film uses magic realism to show that love can change the world and alter reality. The power of love and food combine to change destinies.  This is a trick though.  Magic realism does not alter reality, just the mind of the viewer.  Throughout the movie, it appears that the two are growing closer together.  However, at the end, they are still doomed.  Magic realism has no true power over reality, it only affects the mind.  Despite this, I still believe that the message of the film is that love can conquer all.

Machuca

  In Machuca, Gonzalo and Pedro form an unlikely friendship.  Gonzalo comes from a very wealthy family and Pedro comes from a very poor one.  Gonzalo is very pale, which generally means respect, and Pedro is fairly dark.  When the communist government takes over Chile, the boys are put into a private school together.  They soon become friends and spend a lot of time together.  The boys go to different political rallies and sell flags to all the different sects.  The message that can be inferred from this film is the belief that true love and friendship do not take into account skin color or class.  It is that those things are superficial and do not truly matter.

Volver

 The film Volver is a display of women's resilience because all of the female characters in the film endure some horrible tragedy.  Whether it is an attempted rape, a loved one being unfaithful, or a life-threatening illness, not one woman excapes life's most horrendous trials.  Even though the women are faced with such difficulties, they all overcome the obstacles and grow as a result of them.  In fact, some of the female characters become better off as an indirect result of their experiences.  The main character, played by Penelope Cruz, because of her husband's death, becomes the owner of a extremely busy restaurant.  When Peneolope's mother is revealed to not be dead, or possibly a ghost, the entire family bonds together.  As the film progresses, the viewers learn of more trials that the family has endured.  Despite all of these, the family stays strong and continues to grow stronger.

Entre Nos

  In the film Entre Nos, Mariana is a mother of two children, living in the United States with her husband.  She states that she left Colombia becuase he wanted to.  They are living a fairly comfortable life with friends and enough to get by.  Soon her husband says that he wants to leave for Miami because he has found better work there.  He stops calling, however, and soon it is revealed that he does not intend for his family to reunite with him. 
  Mariana and her two children find themselves in a desperate situation.  She has no job and can barely speak English.  They begin to gather pop cans out of garbage cans to get enough money to eat and are soon kicked out of their apartments.  This affects Mariana immensly because suddenly she has become the bread-winner for her family.  While she had very important responsibilities anyway, she now has all of them for family.  She must take the place of the father and the mother in her family. 
  Being in this situation forces Mariana and her children to become more courageous and self-relient.  It also fuels their love for one another.  This is similar to situations faced by many single mothers, in any nation.  It was obviously an extremely difficult situation but it also brought them much closer together and increased their appriciation for each other.

The Official Story

  In the Official Story, the main character is confronted with a serious dilema.  She is unable to bear children so her husband brings home a young girl one day for them to adopt.  She does not question where the young girl came from until one day an old friend of hers returns and describes being tortured and witnessing mother's children being taken away for political crimes.  She begins to consider that maybe her daughter is one of these lost childern.  As she searches for the answers and truth about her daughter, she starts to experience changes in her own life.  It would be an extremely difficult journey to have to find out who the real relatives of your child are.
  I believe that the mother will be able to reconcile with herself because she becomes open to the new family after some time and invites the grandmother into her home.  She eventually even leaves her own husband to pursue this journey.  Because she is willing to leave her world behind for the sake of her daughter, I know that she is able to grow and adapt to this new addition to her life.

Diarios de Motocicleta

  In the Motorcylce Diaries, Ernesto Guevara starts off as a normal med-student, who is close to getting his degree. What happens during his journey that changes him so radically? Several scenes that are shown to begin this change.  One of the most important scenes is the campfire scene.  As Ernesto listens to the Native Americans tell of their hardship, struggle, and need, it is obvious to the audience that a change is coming over him.  Another important one is when they go to the mines with the Natives.  He sees their treatment and the injustice first hand.  When Ernesto arrives to the leper-camp, he learns that he is capable of helping others less fortunate than himself.  And when he swims the Amazon, he realizes that he can do the "impossible".  He knows that if you fight hard enough for an idea, it, and you, are unstoppable. 
  Some main differences between the United States and the Spanish speaking world are that in South America, dance is an extremely important form of celebration.  This is demonstrated by Ernesto going to several other countries and most, if not all of them, use dance in their festivities.  Dance is used in some mini-cultures in the US but not very many. 

El Mariachi Questions

  The common Mexican stereotypes in the film were fairly easy to identify. The violence over drugs and drug-wars are a common piece of the American view of Mexican culture. Also, the belief that Mexicans drink a lot is not discredited by the film.
  That statement, "All he wants is to be a mariachi," is a very important statement in the film. Being a mariachi means that your entire life is devoted to your guitar and your music. To be a true mariachi, you must travel and have many experiences. You must then turn these experiences into songs and make the music to channel those moments. To El Mariachi, his path is already chosen. His grandfather and his father were both mariachis so that is what he must do. That is his destiny and his purpose. Also, in the film, it is a "gringo" not a Mexican who shoots El Mariachi's hand and ruins his ability to play the guitar. This emphasizes that to a Mexican, a mariachi is a respected, honored individual. But that is an appriciation lost on foreigners.
  The role of music is huge in the film because it represents such an important aspect of Mexican, and Latin-American culture, in general.
 

El Mariachi (Sound, Sonido)

The music is used to create moods but sometimes it is a different one than what the scene itself creates. The sound-effects are used somewhat rediculously. The quality is a little poor and continuously, the sound-effects are over the top.

Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)

Under the Same Moon is a classic tale of passion, courage, and determination.  These qualities are demonstrated in the film by using the modern issue of illegal immigration.  The main boy, Carlos, or Carlitos as he is normally called, flees Mexico into the United States to find his mother.

1. In the film Rosario, Carlos's mother, states that she left him in Mexico, while she went to the United States, to create a better life for them both.  However, she could have had some motives that were only in her interest also.  In the movie, it shows many other Mexicans attempting or desiring to leave for the U.S. It could be possible that Rosario wanted to leave just as much for herself as for Carlos.

2. I believe that Rosario's decision to leave must have been very, very difficult for her to make.  Leaving a child would extremely challenging for any parent.  I think that the knowledge that if she succeeded, she could give Carlos a better future fueled Rosario and made it possible for her to suffer.  It must have been difficult knowing that some members of her family believed that she had abandoned Carlos and was never returning.  Also, the difficulty was demonstrated when she calls Carlos and he keeps asking her when he gets to visit her and she can't give him an answer.

3. Carlos faced many difficulties living apart from Rosario in Mexico.  His neighbors, whom he discovers are his Aunt and Uncle, tell him that his mother is never returning and they try to take custody of him.  Across the border, Carlos's mother faced her own challenges.  She moved away from her family to a place where she is not respected or treated well.  She is forced to take low-paying, serventry style jobs. 

4.While an American mother would normally never have to face these sorts of difficulties, I believe that love is universal and that any mother would do whatever she could for her child.